


baby, be mine tonight

by QLaLa



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mayor Leonard Snart, Over-negotiated actual contracts, Romance, Suit Kink, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:53:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28394940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QLaLa/pseuds/QLaLa
Summary: Leonard’s problem was not, strictly speaking, Barry Allen. His problem was Barry Allen’s signature on a quarter-million-dollar employment agreement so tight, Harry Houdini would’ve drowned trying to slip out of it.His issues with the contract were manifold, but in layman’s terms: if Leonard shoved Barry against the inside of the front door after a re-election event and kissed him the way he’d been thinking about doing all night, he’d be out $250,000 and a campaign partner before his hands finished closing on the front of Barry’s suit jacket.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Comments: 26
Kudos: 184





	baby, be mine tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Am I done with “fake-dating for re-election approval ratings" coldflash AUs? Apparently not. 
> 
> I’d like to thank mx-jinxous for making a Mayor Leonard Snart/Barry Allen [moodboard](https://mx-jinxous.tumblr.com/post/617149016889868288/day-1-fake-relationship-it-was-one-job-one-easy) that inspired this, and my betas, enemiestolovers and lunapuff, for making this story what it is today. 
> 
> Title comes from “Pretty Woman.”
> 
> Note: This is meant to stand alone, but you can read the original drabble I wrote on the same concept, [talking with your fast hands, saving all your slow dances,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24187951) here on ao3 too if you’d like!

Leonard’s problem was not, strictly speaking, Barry Allen. His problem was Barry Allen’s signature on an employment contract that included clauses I.i.7(a)-(c), III.ii.3(b), and VIII.iv.(a)(3), and a non-disclosure agreement so tight, Harry Houdini would’ve drowned trying to slip out of it. 

The offending clauses were, in order of appearance: 

Clauses I.i.7(a)-(c). Part of the term glossary that stretched through the first four pages of the contract. Defining “public,” defining “displays,” defining “of affection.” No room for interpretation, each definition reinforcing the other two. 

Leonard and Barry had spent the better part of a six-hour meeting coming up with a list of strictly agreed-upon limits to how much touching would be necessary, where it would be necessary, and for how long. Or rather, their lawyers had; Barry had spent the meeting alternating between texting and looking at the clock every five minutes, and Leonard had spent it drafting his concession speech. 

The clause contained a list of examples (not exhaustive): A hand on the lower back was appropriate while navigating through crowded public appearances, but both parties should confine themselves to touches to the shoulders, upper back, and arms while making introductions. All acts of physical affection were to be confined to the public sphere, and physical contact within the mayoral townhouse (hereinafter “the Property”) was to be considered a material breach of the contract’s terms, and would be grounds for immediate termination of the contract in favor of the non-breaching party. 

In layman’s terms: if Leonard shoved Barry against the inside of the front door after the campaign event and kissed him the way he’d been thinking about doing all night, he would be out a quarter-million dollars and a campaign partner before his hands finished closing on the front of Barry’s suit jacket.

Clause III.ii.3(b). A strictly-worded sexual harassment policy that allowed for an immediate end to the agreement if either party directed any questions, comments, remarks, or insinuations of a personal nature toward the other party that combined to create a hostile working environment. 

A court could hardly force Barry to follow through on his side of the agreement—the judicial branch frowned on indentured servitude—so Leonard had nothing to gain from breaking the contract just because Barry couldn’t go ten minutes without asking him an invasive question. Leonard, on the other hand, couldn’t so much as ask Barry if he was even attracted to men without forfeiting his side of the bargain and owing Barry his full fee. Double standards being what they were, he had to content himself with a lucky break at an ice cream social where Barry suddenly ducked behind him, face redder than the strawberry-dip cone he was holding, and begged Leonard to hide him from an ex-boyfriend with a press pass. 

And finally, there was clause VIII.iv.(a)(3), which provided for relationship exclusivity in both of their personal lives until the end date of the agreement, (plus a buffer period of three months after their “breakup” for plausible deniability), and clause VIII.iv.(a)(4), which provided for a strict separation of living arrangements within the mansion. 

Leonard’s lawyer had handed Barry’s a blueprint of the mansion with little color-coded rooms—Leonard’s in blue, Barry’s in red, a shared kitchen in diagonal stripes of alternating colors—and Barry sat forward for the first time, his eyes going wide. 

“Something the matter?” Leonard had asked. 

Barry blinked up at him. “The bedroom you gave me is bigger than my entire apartment.”

Leonard smirked. “Only the best for Central City’s future first gentleman.”

Then Barry had grinned. “Oh, no. If we’re engaged? I want two-fifty. Dating the Mayor’s one thing. A broken-off engagement? That’s a first-date disclosure. For life.” 

“You go on many first dates, Barry?”

Barry’s eyes had glittered wickedly as he started to answer, but Barry’s lawyer had cleared her throat so pointedly, she may as well have stabbed Leonard with the pen in her hand. 

“If you can ask your client to refrain from violating the contract before we’ve even signed it—” 

“If he hasn’t signed it yet, he’s not in violation.” Hartley didn’t even look up from his Blackberry. “We can agree to two-fifty if an engagement becomes necessary. Snart, ix-nay on the personal questions.”

“Noted.”

The way Barry hid his smirk behind the lip of his coffee cup was promising, and Leonard held his gaze across the conference table for an electric moment. When they left the room two hours later, Leonard slipped his concession speech into the recycling bin on the way out the door. 

* * *

The state dinner was a welcome break from the campaign trail, even if Leonard did spend the entire night distracted—Barry brushing closer than he needed to, chair too close so Barry could press his thigh against Leonard’s under the table, Leonard’s hand on the back of Barry’s neck instead of the back of his chair when he leaned in to speak to him, unprofessionally letting his thumb linger on the corner of Barry’s jaw. 

He had no one to blame but himself—but if anyone else could be at least marginally responsible, it was the governor, who’d suggested, delicately, that Leonard not bring Barry to the state of the State dinner, given the political leanings of the diplomat who would be seated at Leonard’s table. 

Leonard had given the governor a response even the tabloids wouldn’t print, called his tailor to have Barry’s suit taken in half an inch, and sent his assistant to Tiffany and Co. to get a pair of his cufflinks engraved.

The cuff links had blinked on Barry’s wrists every time he’d reached for his wine during the dinner, something dark and pleased curling in Leonard’s chest at the glint of a cursive L peeking out from under the edge of Barry’s jacket. It didn’t help that Barry rarely bothered to take a sip, and instead let his fingertips trail down the crystal stem as he listened to the others at their table speak. Leonard had to give credit where credit was due; Barry had learned early it was better for everyone involved if he waited to ask questions until everyone had a couple drinks under their belts and were more in the mood to be charmed by the Mayor’s beau’s lack of social graces. 

Leonard hadn’t been subtle about it—Barry had cut him a suspicious look when he’d first caught a glimpse of his altered suit in the mirror—but he should’ve expected that Barry would do his own research before the dinner. The diplomat’s wife—a Mary or Marie—was well past tipsy and showing pictures of her four children to Barry on her slim phone, to the growing agitation of her husband beside her. Barry was all charm, despite not speaking a goddamn word of French, with attentive eyes and one hand cupping her wrist to steady her wobbling grip, Leonard’s signet ring conspicuous on his thumb. He was going to get himself hit.

When the diplomat reached across Mary/Marie for her phone, Leonard broke off his conversation at the sudden movement, tense, ready for any movement toward Barry. He’d promised the governor not to start a fight; he hadn’t said anything about ending one. 

But Barry pulled the phone out of her hands without even glancing at the other man and moved it easily out of his reach. Marie—Leonard was increasingly sure it was Marie—didn’t seem to mind in the least, and she leaned warmly against Barry’s shoulder and swiped to another picture. 

The diplomat threw his napkin on the table, but Leonard was on his feet before the other man could finish pushing out his chair. All conversation at their table stopped dead. 

Barry laughed loudly enough to pull the attention of the surrounding tables and a certain familiar reporter hovering nearby with a zealously clean press pass for the Central City Picture News. 

Marie chattered on in the silence, oblivious. Leonard’s Spanish was better than his French, but he got enough of her explanation to understand that three of the children in the picture had wanted to be princesses for Halloweeen, and the fourth had insisted on being some kind of kitchen appliance. 

Barry tossed a careless grin over his shoulder at Iris—who, to her credit, gave him a look clearly warning him off whatever he was doing—then looked up at Leonard. He didn’t pretend to look surprised to find Leonard standing, and there was a righteous fire burning in his eyes. But he smiled, the photo-ready flash of teeth he’d perfected over the last six months, and announced, “I’d like to go on the record as drawing the line at two.”

The diplomat’s wife laughed; no one else did. 

Several of the other stuffed suits at their table were beginning to shift nervously in Leonard’s peripherals, heads turning to look at the diplomat, who was still frozen halfway out of his chair. But Barry’s gaze didn’t move from Leonard’s, all barely-contained danger, and Leonard gave in. He dropped his gaze to his cuff as he adjusted his sleeve. Then he raised an eyebrow and, lacing his voice with a careful thread of intimacy, he said, “Don’t recall mentioning anything about _one.”_

The fierce satisfaction in Barry’s gaze when Leonard glanced up made his fingers still on his jacket, but a moment later Barry was turning back to the diplomat and his wife instead. There was an open nastiness in the smile he gave her husband, and Leonard knew he’d see the rest of the table looking on in alarm if he could take his eyes off Barry long enough to check. It was a side of Barry that he’d first noticed in the conference room—a jagged edge glittering beneath the veneer of sheepish smiles and guileless green eyes. 

Barry cut his gaze to the diplomat’s wife, and whatever she saw there made her draw back from him an inch. “Back me up. I’ll need something to keep me busy when he’s running for governor in four years.”

 _That_ got peals of shocked laughter from the table, and Iris’s gaze flashing to him. Leonard already regretted the press pass hanging from her neck. She gave Leonard a look that would’ve made a lesser man avert his eyes and whistle, then she tilted her phone towards Barry. “Is that on the record, too?” 

“Yes,” Barry said, grinning broadly, at the same time Leonard snapped, _“No.”_

* * *

Leonard had been distracted since then. If he were being honest, the contract wasn’t his problem. Clauses I.i.7(a)-(c), III.ii.3(b), and VIII.iv.(a)(3)-(4) were equally not his problem. 

His problem was Barry’s sock feet in his lap on the couch in his home office, decidedly out of the “public sphere,” and decidedly _in_ Leonard’s half of their carefully-divided living quarters. 

His problem was his hand on Barry’s ankle, his thumb tracing careful circles on the delicate skin between the top of his socks and the hem of his suit pants. His problem was Barry’s eyes watching him in the dark, heated and half-lidded, reflecting the black-and-white musical still playing on the oversized TV where they’d be watching election results in two weeks’ time. 

The rise and fall of Barry’s chest was shallow in the shifting lights of the screen, and, even in greyscale, Leonard could see flush darkening the tops of his cheeks. Leonard let his thumb skim higher, just brushing under the edge of Barry’s pant leg. He could barely hear the sweeping violins of the film score over the sound of his heart beating in his ears. They’d been like that for the last half hour—twenty-six minutes if Leonard were being exact, and he always was. 

Barry had been looking at him for the last ten, all pretense of watching the movie dropped. Leonard was still facing the screen; he had the irrational certainty that if he sat _very_ still, maybe they wouldn’t already be violating at least two terms of the most expensive employment agreement Leonard had ever signed, or maybe they would at least stop at two. 

As if sensing the thought, Barry chose that moment to sit up. He folded forward to brace his elbows on his thighs, and Leonard made the mistake of looking at him.

His thumb stilled on his ankle. Barry was stunning: face half-lost in shadow, pale eyes silvered by the reflected light of the screen. The freckles that Leonard knew well enough to tell a dream from waking stood out stark against his flushed cheeks; the open collar of his shirt where he’d loosened his tie gave Leonard an unimpeded view of the graceful line of his neck and the hollow at the base of his throat where Leonard’s thumb would fit perfectly. The cut of Barry’s shirt was giving Leonard half a mind to send his tailor his holiday bonus, and it was only mid-October. The fit emphasized Barry’s narrow shoulders and lean arms, and the pearl studs down the front of his shirt that Leonard had bought for the occasion—a diplomatic event meant white-tie attire for the Mayor and his plus-one—all but glowed as they caught the light with every breath. 

“You know, I used to watch this movie about once a week when I was growing up.”

Leonard couldn’t name a single character on screen with a gun to his head, let alone guess the title of the movie. He turned his gaze back to the television with a vague hum, on the off chance an actor might turn to the camera and announce which film he’d supposedly been watching for the past hour. 

“There’s a part coming up.” The smile was audible in Barry’s voice. “I’d never seen anything so romantic. I wore out the tape, I rewound it so many times.”

Leonard didn’t let himself look at Barry, though he could feel the quickening beat of Barry’s heart where his hand was still curled around Barry’s ankle, fingertips ghosting over exposed skin. 

“Judy Garland kisses Gene Kelly, and Gene says, ‘Well, gosh, what hit us?’” 

Barry lilted his voice high and unconvincing in an apparent impression, and Leonard gave him a flatly unimpressed look before he could stop himself. But Barry only tilted him a hopeful smile when their eyes met, and the crooked lift of it made warmth bloom in Leonard’s chest, unacceptably sentimental, infuriatingly persistent despite his thousand failed attempts to smother it. 

Leonard didn’t jump when Barry’s hand settled over his, but it was a near thing. 

“Judy Garland gives Gene Kelly this look, like she can’t believe he didn’t already know.” Barry’s fingers trailed up the back of his hand, leaving Leonard’s skin tingling in their wake. When Leonard looked up again, putting everything he had into warning Barry off with a glare, Barry was looking down at their joined hands. When he glanced up, eyes warm under that fringe of dark lashes, Leonard’s breath caught in his chest. “And Judy says, ‘Oh, it hit me a long time ago.’”

Two weeks until election day. Leonard repeated those five words to himself until they felt important again, and then pulled his hand out from under Barry’s. 

“Barry…”

Barry pulled his feet out of Leonard’s lap, leaving him abruptly cold in their absence, but Barry didn’t move back to his side of the couch. He only crossed his legs under himself on the cushion and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “You were all over me at dinner tonight.” He tilted his head to try to catch Leonard’s eye. “You can say it’s a bad idea if you want to. Because of the contract, 0r the campaign, I don’t care. But don’t act like you don’t want this as much as I do.” 

Leonard had a lot of problems; not wanting Barry badly enough to make an incredibly stupid decision wasn’t one of them. “Whether you care about that contract or not, we both signed it. Call me old fashioned—I still consider a signature legally binding.”

Barry’s fingers curled, and he made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. “Since when do you care about what’s legally binding? You told my landlord to go fuck himself when he tried to enforce my old lease against me.”

Leonard conceded the point with a tip of his head, mostly because it had been viscerally satisfying to see the look on the man’s face when Leonard had come to the door holding the last of Barry’s boxes, and also because he suspected if they stayed on the subject, Barry might find out about the check Leonard had cut when Barry had retreated into the apartment to answer his phone. 

“Be that as it may. Your lawyer’s gonna come after me for a hell of a lot more than two months’ rent when she sues my office for breach of contract.”

He expected more of an argument at best, a confession of undying love at worst. Instead, Barry seemed to come to a decision, and he glanced back at Leonard with a flash of heat in his eyes. “I won’t tell the lawyers if you don’t.”

Leonard blinked, thrown by the sudden change of approach, and Barry’s lips curved up with triumph. 

He could feel the feint; what they’d been talking about a minute earlier hadn’t been the one-night mistake that Barry’s smirk was promising. He could see it still, in Barry’s eyes: too honest, too searching. Leonard knew what taking what you could get looked like, and he wasn’t going to do that to Barry. 

“It’s not about the lawyers, Barry,” Leonard said. “You work for me. That’s what happens when you put your name on an employment agreement.”

The frustration flickered in Barry’s eyes again, but it was with a heated impatience, and the determined way Barry set his jaw sparked an answering interest in Leonard. 

Then Barry was pushing himself up off the couch, and Leonard had to blink past the sharp urge to reach out and stop him. He hadn’t expected Barry to give up; he’d thought they were still safely in the zone of “disagreement,” with some latitude before they crossed into “argument.” Then he realized Barry wasn’t going for the door. 

Barry stalked around the couch, a vintage cologne ad come to life in the careless way he moved in what was left of his suit. Light from the street lamps slanted through the blinds, guiding his way; there was no moonlight in their part of the city, but Barry wasn’t a creature of the suburbs, and the harsh yellow stripes suited him. Leonard was distracted enough by the way the suit pants hugged him that he didn’t realize until it was too late that Barry was heading for his desk. 

“Barry—“ An alarmed instinct almost pushed him to his feet, but he felt guilty even as he planted his feet on the floor, and he forced himself to relax back against the couch. 

Barry pulled open the bottom drawers, barely glancing through them, then diverted to the top right drawer with sudden certainty and pulled it open. He had the contract in his hand a second later. So Leonard had been looking at it recently; glaring at the offended passages, maybe, and resenting the neat, almost self-consciously legible print of Barry’s signature on the last page. So what? 

Barry flipped through the document. He doubled back to the first page, then recited, “Bartholomew Henry Allen, hereinafter ‘the employee’...”

Leonard should’ve chased him after all. He didn’t know what Barry had in mind, but it wasn’t going to end well for him. He weighed the chance that he’d end up chasing Barry in circles around the desk if he tried to stop him now; not great, but he liked his odds at jumping over it quickly enough to grab the papers back even less. 

He settled for more conventional weapons. “You can read your own name,” he drawled, turning his back on him to look at the TV again. “Congratulations.”

“Bartholomew Henry Allen signed this contract.” 

Leonard prided himself on the three seconds he lasted before caving. When he turned to level Barry with an unimpressed look, Barry gestured with the stack of papers then dropped it on the desk. 

“So pretend I’m someone else. Someone you met at dinner, or—“ Barry’s expression went mischievous, and he dropped his lashes with exaggerated coyness. “I could be your intern. You wanted to talk to me, sir?” 

Leonard rolled his eyes, because he couldn’t _not,_ even as his body reacted with _decided_ interest to the picture Barry was painting him, the pointed way he was spreading his fingers over the top of his desk, the low curl of his voice around the word _sir._ “You do understand why that’s worse.”

“If I were your intern, at least you wouldn’t be paying me.” The levity in Barry’s voice didn’t match the way his mouth twisted as he glanced away, fingers curling in on themselves briefly over the polished oak. “Unless college credit counts as prostitution.” 

Leonard gritted his teeth, hating himself for the strength of his impulse to cross the room. “Interns still work for me. Not a line I’m willing to cross.”

Barry glanced back at him and then away again, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He picked up the contract, flipped through it, and paused when it fell open to a page in the middle. Leonard recognized it from across the room; he’d become intimately acquainted with it on his long nights glaring at the language there. 

“Clause eight-six—no, uh, four—?”

“I’m familiar with it.”

He put as much ice into his tone as he could manage—and it was a substantial amount. Surprise and hurt passed across Barry’s features, and Leonard dropped his gaze to the contract in his hands rather than watch the doubt creep into his eyes. 

Leonars curled his hand tightly into a fist as he glanced away, then loosened it again and smoothed out his trouser leg. He’d _behaved._ For the most part. Very least, he’d never put his hand down the front of Barry’s pants in a coat room, which had to count for something. He’d never been young enough to believe life was fair, but surely resisting the temptation that was Barry Allen for six months had earned him points on some cosmic scoreboard somewhere. He shouldn’t have also had to be the one to put that look on his face. 

Barry’s past was a minefield, same as his own; despite his quick smiles and the ridiculous, cocky swagger he got whenever Leonard made the mistake of telling him he’d done well at a press event, it didn’t take a shrink to tell the kid had enough abandonment issues a mile deep. 

He glanced at Barry without his brain’s permission and found him perched on edge of his desk, facing him, his legs spread. Leoanrd flicked his gaze briefly skyward, gathered his strength, and then met Barry’s eye. “You have a point. Make it.” 

The glare Barry gave him was twice as attractive as it had any right to be. “See, it’s an exclusivity agreement. For the length of the agreement, I don’t sleep with anyone, and neither do you. With a conditional exception, subject to further negotiations—“ he turned the page “—for pre-existing sexual relationships.”

Something fanged and nasty scorched up the inside of Leonard’s chest, so hard and fast that Leonard barely got a lid on it before the jealousy could curl his lip. He took a breath. “Standard language,” he said.

“Standard language,” Barry agreed, “that means we wouldn’t be violating the contract if _we_ had a pre-existing sexual relationship.”

He was making even less sense than normal. Leonard ticked his gaze over to him, looking for a hint in his expression. He wasn’t prepared for the open heat in the way Barry was watching him back, gaze skimming up the line of Leonard’s arm where he had it draped over the back of the couch. 

“We don’t.” His voice stayed even, but it was a close thing. Barry shifted his thighs wider for a second, then slid forward and dropped his feet to the floor again. He approached the couch the long way, circumventing the end table, before dropping onto the couch beside Leonard, contract held carelessly in one hand. 

“Depends on how you define relationship.” 

Barry was sitting too close, a little flushed in the low light, and Leonard was already snatching back the contract when Barry’s words registered. He allowed himself exactly two alarmed seconds to rack his memory, but he came up empty. Not exactly a surprise; he would’ve remembered a mouth like Barry’s. 

“You know something I don’t?” 

Barry gave him a quick, filthy grin, eyes bright. “I, um...” It wasn’t affected coyness when Barry glanced away, then glanced back. He looked between Leonard’s eyes, judging something, then rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t still jostling for the contract. It was annoyingly endearing. Then he exhaled on a laugh, shook his head, and finally looked up at Leonard again with a wry smile. “I used to jerk off to your press conferences.”

Leonard froze mid-pull on the contract, and Barry’s grin widened. 

“It was before any of this,” Barry said. Leonard hadn’t meant to let go of the papers, but Barry put them on the coffee table, so he must’ve. “You have…” Barry shook his head again, dragged his hand through his hair, laughed. “God, your hands. I’d put it on mute and just—“ his color deepened “just watch. You make this one gesture…” 

Barry demonstrated, sweeping a hand out with an open palm, then curling his fingers smoothly, deliberately, to punctuate a point; Leonard remembered testing it with the focus groups. 

“I used to come so hard, thinking about what you’d do to me with those hands.” Barry looked up under his lashes, and Leonard knew what was coming even before Barry flashed him a dangerous grin, all sharp teeth, and said, “I still do.”

Leonard cursed, and Barry was still smirking when Leonard caught him by the hair and dragged him in for a bruising kiss. 

Barry gave as good as he got, pushing up onto his knees and getting into Leonard’s lap to chase him back against the cushions. As soon as Barry pressed his teeth into Leonard’s bottom lip, Leonard knew he was ruined. His mouth fit perfectly against Leonard’s, the heat and weight of him addictive, somehow grounding and heady at the same time. Leonard closed his hands around the tops of his thighs, swept his hands up the rich material and dragged him closer, bringing their hips flush together. Barry jolted in his lap, then pressed forward hungrily, hands on Leonard’s face and rocking his hips down and forward. He was—Leonard broke the kiss to drag in air. Christ, Barry was hard and impatient against the front of his trousers. 

Barry broke the kiss to drag in a breath. Then he laughed, and the slight edge of hysteria in it made Leonard pull back to meet his gaze. 

“Just, uh, wow. We’re really doing this? This is, that’s—“

His hands were clutching and releasing the fabric of the shoulders of Leonard’s shirt, and Leonard raised an eyebrow. 

“A problem?” 

Barry’s answering grin made Leonard’s heart do something complicated in his chest. “Awesome.” 

Leonard dragged him in and kissed him again before Barry could say anything else to remind him he had a grad student in his lap. 

Barry laughed against his mouth, a breathless sound, and reached up to drag his own tie looser and get to his collar. He fumbled with the top stud and then yanked his shirt open instead, popping a seam and sending the studs scattering. Leonard was going to have to fish them out from between the cushions later, but Barry’s complete disregard for one of the most expensive pieces in Leonard’s collection was doing more for him than it should’ve. (The cufflinks, at least, were safe in the inside pocket of Leonard’s jacket; he’d liberated them from Barry’s wrists as he’d helped him into the car, and so far Barry hadn’t even noticed they were missing.) 

Leonard should’ve drawn it out more, made Barry beg, but they’d had six months of foreplay and he liked the newfound cockiness on Barry more than he’d expected. He pulled Barry hard against him and ground up, wringing a moan from Barry’s lips, and then he tipped him on his back onto the couch and prowled over his body. 

Barry dropped his head back against the arm of the couch with a breathless grin. He knew how ravaged he looked; it was clear on his face. Dark lips, blown pupils, color high in his cheeks, hair wild like Leonard had already made him choke on his cock. Barry was getting off on offering himself up, on letting Leonard look at him, his breath coming fast and hard under the weight of Leonard’s gaze. 

“You want me to fuck you.” 

It wasn’t a question, but Barry’s breath caught, and after a second, he nodded. 

“You’re getting off on how much I want to fuck you.”

Barry squeezed his eyes shut, nodded, and pressed into his hand again, harder, grinding against his palm. 

Leonard slid a hand up his side, rucking up his shirt, then dragged his palm back down his stomach. He slipped it lower, and kept going until Barry rocked up to push into his hand with a groan. 

“Use your words, Barry.”

Barry shivered, and his voice was rough when he said, “Yes.”

And there was—there was something there, something in his tone, that gave Leonard pause. Something in the way Barry was looking at him—on his couch, in his office, with Leonard’s signet ring on his thumb—that made Leonard lift his hand off of Barry’s trousers until his fingers were just barely brushing the material over his zipper.

“Yes, what?”

It was a stupid risk on top of a stupid risk. If he was wrong, it could bring everything down around his ears. Not just the night and what Barry’s body was promising him, but the entire arrangement. The entire _election._ A breakup two weeks before voting day would be disastrous, and his numbers would never recover in time. But if he was reading it right…

Barry’s lips parted around a ragged breath, and when he reached up to push his hair back out of his face, his hand was shaking. He was watching with eyes dark with hunger as Leonard’s fingers traced the line of his zipper, then his gaze followed his arm up, lingered on his shoulders for a moment, and Barry met his eyes again. “Yes, sir.” 

Leonard’s mouth went dry. He hadn’t expected the word to slip off Barry’s tongue so easily, and it took all of his willpower not to drag Barry back in and taste the shape of it on his lips. 

Leonard trailed one finger down the tie half-loosened around Barry’s neck, slowly, letting Barry feel the weight of it, until Barry’s eyes widened and Leonard knew he’d understood. 

“This tie is silk,’ Barry said, reflexively—to the credit of a half-dozen stylists—and then colored.

“I know,” Leonard said. He flipped up the end of the tie, and he dragged the edge of his nail over the French label there. “I paid for it.”

He tucked one finger under the loose knot at the base of Barry’s throat and felt Barry swallow. Leonard watched his expression carefully, watching for the slightest misgiving as he slid the tie loose. He saw none. 

Leonard turned the tie over in his hands, and watched Barry’s eyes track the movement as he wound it between his fingers, letting the material glide between them, a barely-there rustle of silk against skin.

Barry wanted it, and christ, Leonard wanted it too. But he wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t know they were a solid two-hour conversation away from doing this safely, so Leonard slid a hand down Barry’s arm, and closed his fingers around his wrist with a pointed look. 

Barry swallowed, then bobbed his head in a nod. “Should I—we have a safeword?”

“You want anything we need a safeword for,” Leonard said, firmly and against every single one of his baser instincts, “we’re gonna have to talk about it when we’re not…”

Barry breathed a laugh, making Leonard shoot him a glare—Barry should’ve been _thanking him_ —before he realized it had been self-deprecating. Barry’s hips gave a helpless little hitch, and he was breathless when he nodded again and said, “Yeah. That’s—yeah. Good call.”

“I’ll tie your wrists together,” Leonard said, “but I’m not gonna bind them to anything. You say stop, we stop. Decide you want these untied, we do that too. You can call me sir”—he didn’t let the way Barry’s eyes darkened at that distract him, but it was a near thing—“but I’m not gonna punish you if you forget.”

“I don’t…” Barry shook his head. “I don’t want that. Punishments, I mean. Not just right now, but...”

“Fine by me,” Leonard said. “Like I said. Lot to talk about. This isn’t a scene, either,” Leonard said. “You don’t wanna do something, you say stop. You’re _not_ ,” he added sharply, seeing the smirk pulling up at Barry’s lips, “my intern. And I’m not paying you for this. You’re off the clock. Say it back to me.”

“There’s no ‘off the clock’ in the contract,” Barry reminded him. He was taunting him, now that he knew he was going to get his way, and Leonard had half a mind to put him over his knee for it. “Available 24/7, days off to be negotiated three weeks in advance. All campaign events mandatory.”

Leonard clenched his jaw. He knew better than this, knew better than the whole situation, shouldn’t be laying a hand on Barry when he knew what he wanted and they hadn’t talked about it. The half-measures weren’t fooling either of them. But he also knew better than breaking a contract that could cost him his entire career just to get between a pretty boy’s thighs, so apparently he was having an off day. “Humor me.” 

Barry’s lips pulled into a smirk. “I’m off the clock. Sir.” 

Leonard thumbed open the button on Barry’s pants. “Good boy.” 

Barry’s cheeks darkened in the light of the streetlamp. Leonard raised his eyebrow, waiting for an objection. It didn’t come. 

He hummed consideringly in the back of his throat, then skimmed his fingers over the front of Barry’s trousers, tracing the shape of him, before turning his wrist and cupping Barry with his palm through the fabric. 

Barry tried and failed to bite back a helpless noise, and when he reached to press Leonard’s hand harder against him, Leonard caught his wrist easily in one hand. He brushed a touch down Barry’s other forearm before tugging that hand to him as well, then kept his movements short and precise as he weaved the tie around his wrists and made a quick knot. He dipped two fingers between the silk and Barry’s wrist, earning him a shiver from Barry, and nodded once at the amount of give. 

When Leonard dragged his hand experimentally up the length of him again, Barry moaned and bucked up into his grip with a frustrated gasp. He twisted his hands in the tie’s binding, but didn’t pull them free, Leonard had to sit back at the kick of heat it sent to his groin. When he slid his hand into Barry’s hair, it was very nearly shaking. “Get on your knees.” 

Barry turned his face into his hands and made a grateful noise, then opened his heavy-lidded eyes and nodded. 

He was— christ, he was good at it though, and Leonard felt the irrational urge to track down whoever had taught Barry to do it and break every bone in their hands for touching what hadn’t belonged to them. Leonard had planned to fuck his mouth but Barry had him back against the cushions, holding onto his hair for dear life as he took him down. His mouth was all wet, perfect heat around his cock, every inch, and he hollowed his cheeks around him as he pulled almost completely off before bobbing down again. 

When Barry’s nose brushed Leonard’s lower stomach, Leonard cursed. He fisted his hand in Barry’s hair to hold him there before he could stop himself, knew it was rude but thrust his hips up to press deeper down his throat anyway, and Barry gave a wrecked moan around his cock that made Leonard bite out Barry’s name. He let him go and Barry pulled off with a ragged inhale, but before Leonard could apologize, Barry was already taking him down again.

Barry set a harder, brutal prace, pulling his bound hands back into his own lap and shoved the heel of his palms against his groin. He made a broken noise around Leonard’s cock, and Leonard needed to stop him if Barry still wanted him to fuck him, could feel the heat building at the base of his spine. Then Barry pressed down as far as he could take him, lips against his base and swallowed, throat tightening around the head of Leonard’s cock and Leonard cursed, tugged hard at Barry’s hair and barked, “Barry, _enough—”_

Barry pulled off him with a ragged gasp and dropped his forehead to Leonard’s thigh, catching his breath, shoulders heaving. Leonard could feel him shaking under his hands, and he pulled Barry up by his bound wrists, a thrill at the scuffs on the knees of Barry’s trousers that would need professional laundering to get out. Leonard kissed him once, a hard press of lips to his, and shoved him back on the couch. “You can tell me where you learned to suck cock like that later.” 

“Personal questions? The contract says—”

“Fuck the contract.”

Barry breathed a laugh that stuttered into a groan when Leonard got his zipper undone, then a broken, “Please,” as Leonard pulled his pants and boxers roughly down his thighs, paused for a second to consider, and then dragged them all the way off. Barry dropped one leg off the couch before Leonard had even finished stripping out of his own clothes, and Leonard went still with his fingers on his shirt studs when he looked at Barry in front of him, thighs spread, cock heavy and and flushed and curved up against his stomach. Barry dragged his other leg up, bending it at the knee to shift his legs wider apart, putting himself on display, and Leonard gave up trying to disentangle his shoes and yanked them off, leather be damned. 

Barry rested his bound wrists on the arm of the couch above his head, shifting to let his shirt fall open to frame his chest, and tipped his hips up impatiently. Leonard didn’t keep him waiting. He pressed Barry back against the cushions with his full weight against his front and licked into Barry’s mouth when he parted his lips to gasp at the feeling of their cocks brushing together. Barry was the perfect height for it, for Leonard to chase the taste of himself on Barry’s tongue while he reached between them to wrap his fingers around both their cocks, and he told Barry so. 

Barry made a helpless noise in the back of his throat, and then gasped his name. “I’m not gonna last, Leonard, god. It’s been— I need—”

“I know.” And Leonard wasn’t either, not with Barry arching up to thrust into his hands, his length sliding along Leonard’s, dripping precome over his fingers and slicking their way. 

“Barry—” 

Barry arched his back and pulled his arms down, fumbled his hands between them, clumsy with bound wrists, and closed his fingers over Leonard’s. “Let me make you come,” Barry said. “Please, Len— fuck— sir—“ 

Leonard could only nod against his neck, breathing ragged, shifted up on his elbows as Barry worked them both in hard, sure strokes, and he fisted a hand in Barry’s hair and kissed him deep again, kissed him breathless, until Barry’s every exhale gave way to desperate, breathless moans. “Christ, Barry, like that,” and he shouldn’t have sounded so wrecked just from Barry’s _hands_ on him, fuck, but Barry’s fingers were long and tight and perfect, and Barry shivered at the praise and Leonard bit at the corner of his jaw and thrust into his grip, held Barry’s head back hard as he sucked a bruise high on his neck in a way he was going to regret in the morning before he broke off to breathe again. “So good for me, Barry. Gonna make me come all over those pretty hands, ruin the tie I bought you—”

And Barry jerked against him with a breathless cry of surprise, hips jerking against Leonard’s as he came, his hand gone slick and filthy, not letting up for a second, and Leonard barely got his teeth in Barry’s shoulder in time to muffle his own groan as his own orgasm crashed over him. 

It took several hazy minutes for Leonard to come back to himself enough to realize Barry had looped his arms around his shoulders and was trailing his nails lightly up and down the back of his neck, their chests still brushing as they caught their breath. When Leonard shifted away, regret already knotting his stomach as reality re-encroached, Barry lifted his hands to let him up. 

Barry made no move to sit up himself, though, only dragged his filthy hands through his hair in a way that made Leonard’s mouth go dry. “I can’t believe we did that.” He stretched, seemed to notice with some chagrin that he was still half-wearing his shirt, then settled back against the cushions. “How much do you think Iris’s paper would pay me for this headline? ‘Local man says mayor was the best lay of his life; more at eleven.’”

“Print headlines don’t say ‘more at eleven.’” Leonard checked his own hands and frowned at the stickiness, but still lifted an eyebrow in Barry’s direction. “Best lay of your life, hm?”

Barry threw him a dirty look. “Don’t let it go to your head. I’m not even thirty.” 

Leonard hummed doubtfully, glanced around for something to wipe his hands on, then settled on the open front of Barry’s shirt.

Barry twisted with an indignant squawk, and Leonard rolled his eyes. 

“I’ll take you to my tailor tomorrow,” he said. “Can pick out some new ones.”

Barry gave him a wary look, undermined by the bird’s nest that was his hair. “I didn’t catch the subject of that sentence.”

It was an objection Leonard had heard less and less of over the last few months, but he wasn’t surprised Barry was bringing it up now. “Telling me you don’t want me dressing you?”

“Depends. You gonna keep undressing me, too?”

The _keep_ sounded a little too open-ended, and Barry was watching him closely, strumming an anxious feeling in Leonard’s chest. He didn’t know where to start with _keep;_ this thing had an expiration date, and Barry was looking at him with we-should-talk-about-it eyes. Something flighty beat against the inside of his chest at the suggestion of a cage, but Leonard still felt comfortably mid-mistake, and no one had ever accused him of lacking follow-through. So did what he did best, and ignored the frustration creeping into Barry’s eyes, put a lid down on the feeling trying to assert itself, and reached up to loosen the tie from around Barry’s wrists with a deft movement. He rubbed his thumbs over the delicate skin there, then tipped them into the light to check for reddened skin, found none.

“Good. Fabric didn’t pull.”

“It’s a three hundred dollar silk tie. Of course it didn’t pull.”

Leonard catalogued the new color in Barry’s cheeks, his averted eyes, then conceded the point with a tip of his head. “We’ll get you some in the two hundred range. Should do the job.”

“If the press finds out what you’re spending on me…”

“Press knows I’m spending on you,” Leonard said. “Amateur fashion bloggers track down these suits every time I take you out. Nobody cares, long as I’m not using taxpayer dollars.”

“My _taxpayer dollars_ pay your salary,” Barry said, with a lot less sarcasm to the words than Leonard had given them. “It’s the same thing.” 

Leonard could’ve pointed out that at Barry’s income bracket, his taxpayer dollars weren’t paying for a stop sign, but he refrained. “You’re practically buying the ties yourself, then.”

“Leonard.” A pause, and even dodging his eyes, Leonard couldn’t miss the way Barry’s hands tightened briefly around the edge of the cushion before he smoothed the leather under his fingers. “The election’s in two weeks.”

“So we’ll buy off the rack,” Leonard said, not looking at him. He felt Barry’s gaze on him. Knew it wasn’t what he meant. Knew he was rapidly running out of escape routes from talking about _after._ But _after_ was at least three months away, thanks to the contract’s ninety-day buffer period to avoid the scandal of an election night breakup. Leonard would buy him a new tie for every day of it if he damn well pleased. 

He took a steadying breath; this was turning his head too quickly, every carefully cultivated ounce of ambition and drive that should’ve been focused on the election branching down the new fork with single-minded determination. He wanted Barry in Italian suits that put the price of his white-tie attire to shame; he wanted his assistants chasing down silk shirts, French cuffs, scraps of lace and satin from discreet shops that only took cash. 

Leonard could recite his environmental policy backwards in his sleep but he was having a hard time caring about retraining programs when Barry was shrugging out of his open shirt in front of him, using sheepish fingers to swipe the ruined material through the mess on his stomach and—christ—striped halfway up his chest. 

“Don’t get that on the leather.”

Barry threw him a glare that Leonard had to work not to smile at. “You were going to fuck me on the leather.”

“Still might,” Leonard conceded. Then, because he was going to figure it out eventually: “You’ve got come in your hair.” 

Barry went wide-eyed with dismay, and he shoved his shirt in Leonard’s face when he smirked at him. 

“I’m taking a shower,” Barry said, grabbing his pants off the floor, and Leonard took a moment to appreciate the sight of him stalking through his office to find his shoes without a stitch of clothing on. 

“Use mine,” Leonard said, busying himself with tossing Barry’s wrecked shirt onto the coffee table. If he’d known how they’d end up using it when he’d first picked it out, he would’ve told his tailor to take a lunch break and had Barry right there in the dressing room. “It’s closer.”

Barry looked back at him, puzzled. “It’s on the second floor.”

“Closer to my bed.” 

Barry froze, and then his cheeks flushed. 

“Still need to talk about…” Leonard gestured indelicately with the tie just to watch the blush darken on Barry’s cheeks. “But I could rim you ‘til you come.” He got up, skimming his fingers along the edge of the couch as he drifted closer to Barry. “Fuck you into the mattress.” He pulled the trousers and shoes out of Barry’s distracted grip, and Barry shivered, eyes gone dark and heated and surprised. “Then drag you back down here and have you on the desk, too.” 

Barry’s gaze darted to the desk in question, then back to Leonard.

Leonard put the clothes down on the back of the couch without taking his eyes off Barry. “You want that?” 

Barry exhaled shallowly, nodded, and said, “Yes.”

Leonard slipped a hand up the side of Barry’s throat, brushed a thumb over his bottom lip, then tilted his head and raised an expectant eyebrow. 

And Barry, a slow smirk starting at the corner of his mouth, licked the pad of Leonard’s thumb. “Sir.” 

* * *

They didn’t make it to the desk. 

Barry looked too good in Leonard’s sheets—down on his knees and one elbow, the other hand gripping the headboard as he gave a punched-out moan and said, “Jesus, Len—” 

He dropped his head and flattened his palm against the headboard, bracing himself to push back and meet his next thrust. Leonard had one hand on Barry’s hip and the other in his hair, pulling him back up every time he tried to bury his moans in the pillow. 

Condoms had been dispensed with, quickly enough on both their parts that Leonard was going to have to have a stern talking to himself later. It had been an impatient conversation in which he’d found out that his office had required a full panel of blood tests from Barry before offering him the position, which might’ve been illegal and which definitely made him wonder what Hartley had thought he was hiring the kid for. Barry had countered these concerns by pointing out that Leonard’s annual physical was a public record, and then, when that didn’t work, he flashed Leonard a cocky grin with his legs spread and asked, “What, you don’t want to?” 

The feeling of moving in Barry without the buffer was almost too much. Leonard had to hold himself back from how badly he wanted to push Barry down into the tangle of sheets and chase his pleasure, hard and fast, to give in to the urge to mark Barry from the inside and ruin him for anyone else. He’d exhausted his willpower around the time he started murmuring filthy praise in Barry’s ear, so the only thing left to hold him back was the breathless way Barry kept cursing, gasping out moans, shaking with it. Leonard wanted to make it last until Barry was senseless with pleasure, until it was something Barry would remember even when everything else had blown up in their faces. No matter how everything ended, Leonard would be damned if Barry didn’t remember this night. 

So he kept it slow, drawing back, and then driving into Barry again, grip on his hip going bruising when Barry tightened around him with another gasped breath. Barry was saying his name, he realized, but he wasn’t asking for anything, just bowing his back deeper to press back to take more of him, forehead on the pillows, repeating his name in a wrecked voice. 

They weren’t going to make it to the desk, that much was clear. Leonard was doing most of the work holding Barry up, there was no way Barry would even be able to walk to the office. The thought made Leonard’s cock jerk, and Barry must’ve felt it, made a helpless noise in the back of his throat that made Leonard slow down further, barely pulling back before rocking into him again, and Barry let go of the headboard to sink further onto the bed, his shoulder blades sharp on that gorgeous back that Leonard had already had the pleasure of marking up in several places, and he moaned something that sounded like a plea into the pillows. 

Leonard gave in to the urge to bend forward and drape himself over Barry, slipped his hand up Barry’s waist, his side, pushed his sweat-damp hair up on the back of his neck and bit a kiss at the top of his spine, and murmured, “Didn’t catch that.” 

The string of consonants he got in response when Barry turned his head enough to answer was incomprehensible, and it pulled a real smile out of him, pulling back far enough so his lips on the back of Barry’s neck wouldn’t give him away. 

“Tapping out?” he asked, and laughed when Barry shoved his hips back against him in response. 

“If you even think about stopping—” 

“Greedy.” Leonard kissed the corner of Barry’s jaw, then leaned forward to press another to the corner of his mouth. It was complicating things, but Barry shivered every time he kissed him, and Leonard wasn’t inclined to stop. 

Barry’s lashes were damp with tears even as he breathed, “Fuck you.”

Leonard let the obvious retort go unsaid in favor of building to a steady rhythm again. Barry’s thighs were shaking, a fine tremor running through him, clear in the way he was gripping the pillow to keep his hands from giving him away. He inched one forward to get his palm flat against the headboard again and rocked back to meet him, and Leonard let himself wrap an arm around his waist and stay close to him, holding his hips up, braced himself on one hand, bracketing Barry’s forearm, let Barry feel him pressed close along his back. He pressed his lips to Barry’s throat again as he moved in him, a drag of teeth, and Barry shuddered, breathed his name, voice wrecked. 

“Good?” Leonard murmured against his ear, just to feel him shiver. Barry’s back was fever-hot against Leonard’s chest, Leonard could feel every shift of muscles as Barry tried to keep himself up on his arms and meet his pace. Barry only gave another of those helpless moans in answer, too far gone for words, and _that_ was what Leonard had been waiting for. He moved the arm around Barry’s waist lower, judged if Barry could hold himself on his knees as he carefully eased off his support, and when it was clear that, at least in the short-term, he could, Leonard slipped his hand between Barry’s legs. 

Barry smothered a sharp cry into the pillows and bucked underneath him, and tightened so hard around Leonard’s cock that Leonard had to bite his tongue to hold himself back from giving in to the lash of pleasure that shot up his spine. 

“Oh god, Len.” Barry’s voice cracked, more a sob than words. “Please, please—” 

Leonard curled his fingers into a proper grip and Barry’s legs nearly gave out, a shiver wracking his body. “So pretty when you beg me for it,” Leonard murmured, and his next thrust was harder, sharper, and Barry cried out. “Like you never wanted to come so badly.”

Barry shook his head, gasped out, “Never.” 

“Twice not enough for you, Barry?” he asked, just to watch the tips of Barry’s ears turn pink, not slowing the stroke of his hand. “Thought you told me after you came with my tongue inside you, you might not be able to go again.” 

Barry exhaled on a whine, and pressed his face into his forearm. “Later,” he panted. “Gloat later, Len, please—” 

The nickname was new, had replaced _sir_ as soon as Leonard had dragged him down into his sheets. Leonard hadn’t minded, had liked it even; Barry not being able to stay in a scene once Leonard got his mouth on him was a prize all its own, and Leonard planned on exploiting it shamelessly. 

Barry glanced up at him with desperation in those heartbreak eyes, pupils blown, a blush ravaging his cheeks. 

Leonard kissed him, shifted onto his elbow to lean in close enough to claim Barry’s mouth, and Barry made a noise of sharp relief against his lips even as Leonard sped up his hand on him. Then Barry was breaking away to pant for breath, his fingers fisting in the pillow as he tensed under Leonard’s hands, against his chest. 

“I’ve got you,” Leonard murmured. He kept moving his hand, sharpened his thrusts, and found the half-moon of pin-prick bruises he’d left on the juncture of Barry’s neck and shoulder downstairs and pressed his teeth there again, and Barry came with a hoarse shout. 

Leonard wished they’d done this while Barry still had that shitty apartment on the Lower East Side with the paper-thin walls, wished he had neighbors to hear the wrecked way Barry gasped his name as Leonard worked him through it. He kept his hand moving over him until Barry made a tight, oversensitized noise, then shifted to close a slick hand over Barry’s hip. He could feel his rhythm stuttering and gave into the need to be closer, buried his face in Barry’s neck. He tried to claw back a shred of control and started to pull out, but Barry reached back to find his side with a shaking hand, scratched his nails over him as he sought a grip and said, “Stay.” 

“Barry—” 

“Please.”

Leonard caved. When he pressed back into Barry, Barry moaned, nodded with his face half-hidden in the pillow, lips dark from the press of his own teeth, lashes fluttering, and he rocked to meet Leonard with shaking limbs. Leonard dropped his forehead to rest between Barry’s shoulder blades as he built them into a rhythm again, self-control fraying until his grip on Barry’s hip was going to bruise and he was driving into him hard and desperate. Barry was babbling nonsense at him—how good it felt, how much he wanted it—and Leonard knew the sound of Barry’s voice breaking as he begged him to come inside him was going to haunt his every waking hour. He came with his face pressed hard to Barry’s neck, and Barry’s gasp of his name as Leonard spilled in him. 

It was several long minutes before Leonard could bring himself to move, and he managed an apology as he got his hands under him to shift his weight off Barry. But Barry only hummed with a bone-deep satisfaction that stirred something primal and pleased in Leonard’s chest, and his voice was scraped raw when he murmured, “You can stay, I don’t mind.” 

It made Leonard’s heart do something dangerous in his ribcage, and he forced himself to huff a laugh against the top of Barry’s spine, had to ignore the pleased little noise Barry made when his breath stirred the ends of his hair. 

“We should talk about it,” Barry said, when Leonard finally dragged himself off Barry and dropped onto his back on the sheets next to him. 

Leonard bit back the comment on his tongue, a defensive ‘what’s there to talk about?’, and sighed. “I know.” 

“I’m in love with you.” 

Leonard was silent for another moment, nothing in the room but the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. “I know.” 

Barry dragged himself up on one elbow, the effort it took him obvious, and Leonard took an idle once-over of his chest and shoulders before he looked up to see Barry glaring at him. 

“You did _not_ just Han Solo me.”

It was less than Leonard expected—less than he deserved—but it still startled a huff of laughter out of him. “Wasn’t my intention,” he said. He couldn’t make himself meet Barry’s gaze, but he glanced in his direction with a half-apologetic twitch of his lips and a twist of guilt in his stomach. “Told you we shouldn’t do this.” 

“So, what?” Barry sounded pissed, to Leonard’s relief; a fight, he could do. “You want to go back to monogramming my initials in your old pocket squares and pretending we don’t want it to be real?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.” 

“Those aren’t the words I want to put in your mouth, trust me.” 

There was real anger sharpening Barry’s voice, but when Leonard gave him a warning look, he was already pulling himself back under control. 

“Sorry,” Barry said. He hauled himself up to sit against the headboard, and something traitorous in Leonard’s chest softened with fond amusement when Barry checked his hand before dragging it through his hair. “That wasn’t fair. You don’t… owe me that.” 

“No,” Leonard said. He studied his hands, castigating himself for his stupidity, Barry was too good for this; he should’ve ended it months ago when he’d seen him falling. He’d known it from every quick sideways glance over breakfast, every lingering touch when they danced. It had been selfish, short-sighted—and easy as breathing. Because Barry had gotten under his defenses before Leonard had known what was happening; he’d never had a chance at walking away from this in one piece. But he could’ve spared Barry the same fate, should’ve sent him away and fought a dirty campaign, the way he’d pushed for to begin with until Lisa had talked him into a love story instead. 

“What I owe you is a hundred grand,” Leonard said. “I’ll call the lawyers in the morning. You can take the town car to the storage unit. I’ll make sure the check clears before you’re ready to put down a security deposit on an apartment.”

Barry was sitting beside him, incredibly still in his peripherals. “You’re kicking me out.” And then, with new anger, surprising Leonard: “Len, the election is _two weeks away._ You know what the press will do when they find out.” 

Leonard had never cared about an election less. He looked away at the far wall. “I’m not—“ He exhaled an annoyed breath. _’Kicking you out’_ was on his lips, but hell, it was what he should’ve been doing. He’d been trying to buy Barry out, give him the option to do this for real, but it had been a stupid, childish impulse. “I’ll get you the check tomorrow, you can—“

“I don’t want the fucking check, Len! I want _you.”_

Leonard could still taste the sweat of Barry’s skin on his tongue; he wasn’t ready to have this conversation. Barry thought he didn’t want the check because his brain was swimming in hormones. He’d differently in three months, when the glitz and adrenaline of the election were long past, and he was sitting alone in an empty townhouse while Leonard tried to get a budget passed at three in the morning. Leonard wasn’t going to wait for that day to come. And if Barry was having a hard time picturing it, well. Lucky for him, Leonard had a visual aid. 

He reached over to the bedside table, pulled open the second drawer, and pulled out the object tucked into the back left corner. He tossed it to Barry. 

Barry caught it in both hands on instinct, and he looked down with his brow furrowed only after a wary sideways glance that told Leonard he wasn’t getting out of the conversation that easily. Then he opened his hands, and his face drained of color. 

“How about now?” Leonard asked. “I’ll make it two-fifty. That’s what we agreed for an engagement, right?” 

Barry only stared at the small box in his hands. He wasn’t blinking. 

“A quarter mil. Fair play for ‘first date disclosures for life.’” He couldn’t keep looking at Barry’s wide-eyed shock, took his time curling his fingers and then relaxing them again. The ring was the cherry on top of his poorly thought out plan; it had been nothing short of childish to think he could pull it off, that he could thread the needle, that the arrangement was ever going to end any way but with a messy break and a cut check.

“Media loves an election-night proposal. Still what you want, Barry? Or should I get my checkbook?”

Barry was quiet for the better part of five agonizing minutes, fingers still over the box in his hands. 

“You were gonna give up the election,” Barry said, breaking the silence. “Just now. The mayorship, your governor run. All because, what?” His eyes flashed up, searching, and there was a hard edge of anger there. “Is throwing away your entire career really that much easier than admitting you— that you have feelings for me?” 

“Barry…”

He shoved the ring back at Leonard’s chest, and Leonard caught it with numb fingers. 

“Don’t even wanna open it?” Leonard asked, before he could stop himself, because apparently he was willing to twist the knife in his chest himself if Barry wasn’t gonna do it. 

“I know which one it is,” Barry said, and the fight went out of him an inch. “You saw me looking at it, that afternoon we picked up the cufflinks. You said—”

“You look better in gold.” There was no point denying it; the box held the silver band that Barry had glanced twice at, with a half-carat diamond the size of a pinhead sunk in the center, flush with the metal, only the slightest glimmer in the display case lights to set it apart from the plain bands. A practical ring for a hopeless romantic. Leonard had indicated it to the sales associate when Barry had moved away, and a discreet package had been hand-delivered to his office the next morning, with an even more discreet bill tucked inside. 

Barry shook his head. “You’re not proposing on election night.”

“There’s not gonna be an election night. Not an acceptance speech, anyway.” 

“Will you _listen_ to what I’m saying instead of falling on your sword every time I so much as look at you?”

The air rang in the aftermath of Barry’s raised voice, and when Leonard looked up with a raised eyebrow, Barry had the good sense to look embarrassed. 

“I’m not leaving, Len. And I don’t want your money. Tear up the contract. And I don’t want to see that—” he pointed at the ring with vehemence bordering on violence “—again, not until we’re ready to do it for real.” 

Barry’s eyes were all righteous fire, but his fingers were tight on the edge of the sheets. There was a vulnerability kept barely at bay there, like he could make in true just by saying it firmly enough. 

Leonard looked him over. Wide green eyes, a freckle pattern he could draw in his sleep, narrow shoulders fighting the instinct to hunch over protectively. Someone Leonard could wake up to every day for as long as he managed not to tear it apart like every other good thing in his life. It would end in disaster; that was the only option for someone like Leonard. The only thing he hadn’t fucked up was Lisa, and he still wasn’t convinced that hadn’t been a fluke. 

He liked his alternatives even less, though: a press statement announcing an amicable split, the inevitable crowing about the instability of “that sort” of relationship. A disappointing dip in youth turnout once the rumors started—a flurry of tabloids, photoshopped pictures of one or both of them in compromising positions with other men, with women. Delighted headlines speculating abuse to the high heavens, dragging his father’s criminal record into the light again and paying experts to wonder aloud about the cycle of domestic violence; he could see the list of publications he’d be suing for libel in a month’s time—

“Leonard?” 

Barry’s hand brushed his, concerned, and Leonard realized he was holding the lacquered box so tightly it was at risk of cracking. 

“Okay.”

Barry blinked at him. “Okay?”

“There are… conditions.”

Barry laughed. “Add it to the list of things we need to talk about when we’re not naked.”

Leonard gave him a look for that, but Barry answered with a cheeky smile. 

“Earlier tonight,” Leonard said. “The dinner.”

Barry cocked his head, then laughed. “Mary. The diplomat’s wife.”

Leonard looked away, annoyed. “I don’t…”

“Want kids? I know, Len. I only said that to piss off her husband.” 

Leonard glared at him for it, but Barry was smiling at him, and it was hard to care about anything else when relief was trying to mutate into hope in his chest. “It’s non-negotiable.”

Barry’s eyes softened. “I know.” 

Leonard glanced away. Then, with a suspicion, he looked back at him, and saw a spark of mischief in his eyes, a curve threatening at the edge of his lips. 

“Are you Han Soloing me?”

Barry smiled. “Turnabout’s fair play.” 

Leonard snorted, and glanced down to study the box in his hands for lack of a safer place to look. 

Barry allowed them to sit in silence for a full minute longer than Leonard had expected—that was, a minute and fifteen seconds. “You don’t have to say it, you know.”

“I—”

Barry shoved his shoulder, and Leonard smirked as he glanced up. “If you say, ‘I know,’ one more time, I really will leave. Your driver likes me better.”

Leonard lifted an eyebrow. “It’s cute you think you can walk right now.”

Barry looked offended for a second, a sharp blush rising in his cheeks, and then he was shaking his head on a spluttering laugh. “You know what? Don’t rip up the contract. I want to add a new clause. You’re not allowed to make fun of me when I still have your come all over my thighs. I’m gonna need another shower, by the way, so thanks for that.” 

Leonard looked Barry over with interest as heat licked up his spine, and got a cocky smile back that looked dangerously like a challenge. “Seem to remember someone promising me I could gloat later. It’s later.” 

“Oh, now you’ve got jokes,” Barry said, but he was leaning in, a hand tracing up the inside of Leonard’s arm, and when Leonard hummed in agreement, he closed the space between them and kissed him.

“We can call the lawyers in the morning, mutually dissolve the contract,” Barry said, after two attempts to pull away that Leonard had successfully foiled. “And don’t look at me like that. I told you, I don’t want the money. I’ll be done with grad school next semester, and I already have offers. I don’t need it. ” 

Leonard rolled his eyes. “Least you can do is let me take care of the student loans. Gonna be mine anyway if we get married. Might as well get ahead of the interest now.” 

Barry put his hand on the side of Leonard’s face and looked him in the eye, expression serious. “That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.” 

Leonard batted his hands away, and Barry laughed, then stole another kiss from him. He hadn’t actually answered Leonard about the loan or the wedding, so he took it as a yes. 

Then Barry paused as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and he glanced back over his shoulder with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You know; if you keep making jokes about getting married, a guy’s gonna get all sorts of ideas.” 

A delicate quiet followed, into which the reality of the situation inserted itself neatly. Beneath the official story of a discreet two-year relationship, he’d known Barry for just under six months, and been in a genuine relationship with him for, at the most generous reading, four hours. (And at the least generous, possibly the ten minutes since Barry had made it clear he wanted to continue seeing him without an imminent payday). 

It was completely irrational for Leonard to be busily adjusting his mental projections for the next twenty years of his life to account for a second person. But he planned; it was what he did. The next minute, hour, week, five years. Barry fit in his life. All it required was a few recalculations—they’d win the primaries in the governor race by double-digits, the election in a landslide. A pair of beat-up street shoes would be by the front door when Leonard got home from the capital instead of an empty space, and Barry would be at the kitchen table with a stack of college freshmans’ exams in front of him and a pen between his teeth.

There’d be a wedding, black tie, with a celebrity guest list and a terse handshake—the first and last—from Joe West at the reception. He’d have to excuse himself from a cabinet nomination meeting to deal with five voicemails because he’d forgotten to refill the cat’s prescription before he left and now they had a six-hundred-dollar vet bill to take care of. Then flowers, chocolates, the kitten at the shelter whose adoption Barry had been laying out ten-point arguments in favor of for weeks, and Barry already apologizing for voicemails four and five (one through three had made valid points) as Leonard pushed open the front door. 

Leonard remembered, with resignation, Lisa’s smirk when he’d asked her for her top three candidates, and she’d handed him a single folder and said, “You can thank me in your speech at the wedding.” 

Leonard nodded, once. He’d take these odds. “The Plaza books two years out,” he said. “Nowhere else has the ballroom we’ll need for the reception. Guest list’ll top 400 when city officials and visiting dignitaries are accounted for. So.” He looked up and gave Barry an even look. “Let my assistants know when those ideas of yours turn into something a little more… concrete. They’ll get us a date.” 

Barry stared at him. Leonard was worried they were heading for another interminable silence like the one after he’d first thrown Barry the ring, but then Barry blinked, and his cheeks went rosy. “Oh my god,” he said. “Oh my _god._ Was that—did you just _propose_ to me?” 

Leonard rolled his eyes. “We can have a discussion about marriage without it being a proposal, Barry. We’re adults.”

“That wasn’t a _discussion,"_ Barry said, his voice jumping an octave. “Len, that was—”

“Marriage is a technicality at this point,” Leonard said, conceding his point with a shrug. “Makes strategic sense.” He ticked off his points on his fingers. “We can stand each other, your approval ratings are double mine, you have an in with the press, and I can probably get you more through the prenup than you’d ever take from me outright.” Then he smirked. “I didn’t hear any complaints about the sex, either.”

Barry dragged a hand down his face. “Stop talking,” he said, muffled. “Just—absolutely not. We’re not doing this right now. And, you know what?” He pointed at him, then reached over and grabbed the ring box. “You just lost privileges. You can have this back when _I_ propose. We can do the—the long engagement, your dinner guests. But it’s not gonna be until at least a year from now, and I’m gonna be _clothed.”_

Barry levered himself out of bed, muttering about his third shower in one day, and Leonard helped himself to a long stretch, several joints popping pleasantly before he settled back against the pillows to watch Barry go. 

Barry grabbed his towel where it had been abandoned on the doorknob, then threw a look over his shoulder, an expectant eyebrow raised. “Are you gonna join me?” 

“In a minute,” Leonard said. He reached over the edge of the bed to recover his dinner trousers and pulled his phone out of the pocket. “I need to make sure our esteemed guests aren’t making an international incident over your comments at dinner.” 

“Worth it,” Barry said, and he dropped him an honest-to-god wink before he left the room. 

Leonard heard the water turn on as he pulled up Hartley’s number and sent him a text. 

_Clear your morning. I plan on ruining it._

_judging from your smug tone and the time of night, you either rigged the election or slept with the arm candy_

_I didn’t rig the election._

_god damn you_

_you do not pay me enough for whatever you’re about to say_

_Then we’ll talk raises tomorrow. Get me a prenup drafted, I want to look it over before Barry’s attorney gets there._

_ha ha_

_snart i said ha ha_

_don’t fucking say the word prenup and then leave me on read leonard_

_i’m calling lisa_

The sound of a shower curtain pulling open broke into Leonard’s thoughts. 

“I’m not saving you any hot water!” Barry called, and the curtain swished threateningly into place again. 

Alone in the bedroom, Leonard let himself smile, just for a second. Then he shook his head, turned his phone off, and slid out of bed. He had forty-five minutes before his sister let herself in through the front door with a binder full of maid of honor dresses; he intended to make the most of them.

*

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked the story, feel free to leave a little love in the comment box below! You can find me on tumblr at [ lesbianleonardsnart. ](https://lesbianleonardsnart.tumblr.com)


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